T B Hoover on Adams and Total Depravity

The foregoing reference to evil leads to a consideration of Adams' thought relating to the condition of man before the operation of God's spirit upon his being. Along with Calvin, he holds that this condition is one of total depravity and total inability due to the pollution of  original sin. That is, the effects of sin extend to every part of man's personality rendering him totally unable in spiritual matters though capable of natural, civil and external religious good. This view of the effect of sin is

quite different from the view that fallen man possesses a plenary ability, and that be is not in a sinful state having the capability of doing all that he ought to do. Also Adams' view differs from that which claims that because original sin is involuntary it is not actual or true sin; and that the influence of the first man's sin extends enly to the sensuous nature, and not to the rational and moral nature of man. Adams' theology would not admit the claim that man is capable of keeping the law perfectly as law is

adjusted according to man's ability; and the possibility of man's being free from conscious sin - a view that allows fallen man a gracious ability enabling him to turn to God and believe.

Adams' Calvinism with respect to the nature of man's depraved condition is expressed in clear and certain terms. When discussing original sin he says; "There is a depravation and corruption of the whole nature of man, whereby he stands guilty and polluted before God, indisposed to all good, and prone to all evil." (III.19). In. the same discussion, he further indicates the extent of this corruption by calling it "a pravity and deformity of all the powers of man." Here he traces its efficient cause to the

perverseness of the first man's will, and accounts for its imputation to the human race by means of carnal propagation. This view of natural propagation as an instrument is opposed to what Adams calls the Pelagian error holding "that the guilt of the first sin was derived to other men, not by propagation, but by imitation." (I, 233) This extension of corruption to the whole of man is treated by Adams in a sermon entitled "The Bad Leaven" in which he says; "a little sin makes the whole man, in body and soul, unsavoury to the Lord." (II, 33) His position regarding man's spiritual condition by nature is one which allows no goodness in man at all, and sees him as corrupted in mind, will, and affections making him spiritually incapable without divine grace. In other words, it is a position that holds that men all have a natural corruption depriving them of all habitual goodness. His thought on this subject will be given more attention in a later discussion of God's grace as he understood it. There it will especially be treated as opposed to the Arminian viewpoint.